In this week's blog, we look at some features we have added in previous versions that may help you to be a more efficient user of AllOrders.

Tips and Tricks for Using All Orders

One of the great things about All Orders is just how robust a tool it is and the flexibility it gives users looking to make their processes more efficient. With all of these features and functions, however, it can create situations where additional efficiencies can be overlooked. This week, we look at a few tips and tricks that can sometimes be overlooked.

·Using the Scan Box - You do not need a scanner to use the scan box. Simulate a scan by pressing the tab key. You can enter in the Item Name, UPC, Manf. Part #., Vendor Part #, Vendor UPC, or Descriptions.

·Auto Email Shipping Forms - Shipping forms can be setup to be automatically emailed once a Ship Doc is marked as shipped. Emailing directly from All Orders has to be turned on for this feature to work.

·Editing Multiple Orders - Typically only one single document for any document type can be open at a time. Users needing the ability to open more than one order or quote at a time can turn on the "Allow Multiple SOs/Quotes to be open" in the Sales Order Preferences.

·Multiple Copies of All Orders - You can open multiple All Orders windows. Simply Click the All Orders Icon to open another copy, confirm that you want to open another copy, and use the same username and password log in.

·Setting up Default Printers - Typically All Orders does not tell Windows which printer to use when sending documents to the printer. Use the "Apply default printer" in the Report Preferences to have All Orders dictate which printer to use. By doing this All Orders will make sure the report is sent to the default printer but allows users to set the default printer per report and override the default printer.

·List Hack - Sort multiple list columns by clicking the initial column to sort by and holding down Shift key while clicking additional columns to add to the sort.

·

List Hack - Use powerful filters to find what you are looking for. Using the * for fuzzy matching, using the Greater than > and <less than characters to help filter the numeric columns.

·Batch Processing - Various commands can be done in batch from the list by using the filters and the check boxes to focus on the rows in the list that processing needs to get done on. Orders can be easily closed in batch directly from the Sales Order List, Ship Docs can be marked as Shipped and Recorded in Quickbooks, Work Orders can be changed to a status of Finished, they can by Picked and Allocated, Drilled Down, and Flattened in a batch.

As more and more companies march towards in-store and online sales integration, it has become clear that there's more than just shipping costs digging into profits.

Why You Should Update Your Inventory Process

Modernizing your inventory management process could be just the change your business needs to stay successful.

There can be no doubt that as a whole, retail operations have become vastly more complicated within just the past decade. As more and more businesses and companies look to reconcile in-person (in-store) transactions with online sales, the importance of managing that business with an efficient inventory management tool becomes all the more apparent. Poor or inadequate inventory management can open the door to production and order delays, unhappy customers and unexpected expenditures, so it is not difficult to understand the importance of getting it “right”.

The problem seems to stem from the slow adoption of processes and technologies that have been proven to save time and money for businesses in all sectors. For example, according to a recent study 43% of small businesses operating in the United States do not track their inventory or do so through a manual process. In the same study, it was also discovered that 55% of those same small businesses don’t currently track their assets or do so manually. This has resulted in overstocks, out-of-stocks and returns costing the U.S economy more than $1.75 trillion dollars in lost revenue annually, a number that has been steadily increasing. In fact, if you sell a product within the U.S., on average it is costing you $1.43 in inventory costs for every dollar made in sales.

To the business planner looking to forecast costs and sales, numbers like these must seem especially egregious. With nearly $14 billion in industrial assets changing hands and an increase of 15% in eCommerce over the same period last year, many companies may find themselves wondering why their gross margins may not be experiencing the same growth. For some, increasing the number of skus to meet long-tail customer demands has been the solution, but a much more efficient solution is to integrate better processes that remove contributing factors like human error from the equation.

This may be changing, however. As more and more companies look to shore up holes in their budgets, more and more are looking towards taming their inventory as one of the more rewarding opportunities. According to a study by Motorola, 66% of warehouse IT and operations decision makers plan to expand technology investments by 2018, citing automation efficiency and worker productivity as the driving forces behind those decisions.

The benefits of improving tracking and inventory management are numerous, but there are some considerations for businesses still on the fence as to whether to embrace digital solutions (such as All Orders by NumberCruncher) or not. One key consideration that may not be so obvious is that whether you like it or not, customer satisfaction is absolutely an external factor that can affect your ability to forecast inventory or production. Agitating your hard-won customers with low or out of stock items will almost certainly lead your customers to question if their patronage is worth the hassle to get the product and just as a recall can damage a business’ reputation, failure to recognize the value and importance of managing your inventory is a nightmare waiting to happen.

Additionally, for businesses that operate with regulatory or government oversight, proper inventory management can not only improve efficiencies within your business, it can also help to keep your customers safe. In a study by the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers observed that the use of barcode tracking led to a reduction of administrative errors by 41.4% at an academic medical center. In other industries, this might translate into an avoided recall or unexpected costly expenditures so there are other benefits a company can expect to receive by integrating and updating their inventory processes.

If your company is one of the estimated 69% of small to medium-sized businesses expecting revenue growth this fiscal year, it certainly seems worth investing the time and resources to implement an efficient inventory control strategy.

All Orders 6.2.16

What's New

Starting with release 6.2.16, All Orders has added features that will enable users to easily export/import and edit bulk information within the software.

This is was one of the most requested features from our users and was voted on at the "Creative Feature Session" at this year's CRUNCHTREAT.

In addition we have enhanced our tools for update BOMs in bulk, added multi line custom fields and more. Read on for the details!

Export/Import

You will notice on various lists and entity editing screens throughout the system a new Excel Export button. Some of the more popular ares it is available in include the item, customer, vendor and price level lists. This button can be used to export the data you need into the same format as our standard Excel import templates. By doing this we eliminate the need for exporting data from reports and then copying and pasting into our standard import template. Now you can export, make the changes you need and then import all without having to copy and paste a thing!

Bulk Updating BOMs

We've added a new and enhanced screen that will allow users to bulk edit bill of materials (BOMs). Simply go to the Production menu and click on the Bulk Update BOMs button.From here users can easily add new components in bulk, remove components in bulk or replace existing components in bulk. Select the components and the assemblies and click Process to quickly and efficiently get all your BOMs in order!

Multi Line Custom Fields

Ever wanted to add a new custom field to have notes, comments, or store any other type of data that needs to have multiple lines? Now you can! When managing custom fields and adding or modifying a Text type of field a Lines box will appear where a number of lines can be entered for how many lines should be visible for that custom field. Once a number larger than 1 is entered it automatically turns the custom field into a multi line that can store as many lines as needed and the number entered will be how many lines are immediately visible on the custom field entry screen before the user needs to scroll down.

Customer/Vendor Notes

Now users can view notes and comments for customers and/or vendors while saving order documents.

Edit Custom Fields on read only Ship Docs

Now users can create and edit custom fields on shipping documents even after the document has been marked as shipped or invoiced which would have rendered the fields as read only in the past.

Additional Features

Importing sales order from QB picks up custom fields as well.

Setting for showing customer/vendor notes when saving order documents.

Cost fields on the BOM screen made wider.

Download button on the attachments screen for downloading web based attachments locally.

New setting to leave inactive items off new order being created by duplicating existing orders.

We're always working to improve All Orders. If there is a feature you would like to see in a future release, please take a look at feature release page (link) to vote on other user-submitted suggestions or to submit your own.

FREE All Orders Training Webinars Start this Thursday, April 6th!

Starting on Thursday, April 6th at 3pm (est) and continuing every week, NumberCruncher.com's trainer, Veronica, will be hosting a 60 minute All Orders Training Q & A where current users can ask her any questions they may have on the software, as well as, learn some nifty tricks & tips too utilize All Orders to the fullest!

Hey Cruncher's! Hope everyone's 2017 is starting off well! Here at Numbercruncher, we've been busy between our First Client Retreat, that just passed & getting our newest product, Order Time, ready for launch!

Our First Client Retreat was a HUGE success & everyone in attendance had a great time, learning everything there is too know about All Orders & networking with fellow Numbercruncher Customers. If you weren't able to attend this year, make sure you keep your eyes out for information on next years Client Retreat, happening in February 2018!

All Orders Update 6.2.14

Numbercruncher has released update version 6.2.14 for All Orders. Since the last major update we pushed out was 6.2.10, 6.2.14 covers all the release notes from the past couple minor updates (6.2.11, 6.2.12 & 6.2.13). Please find all the release notes for 6.2.14 below. To update, please click HERE or visit Numbercruncher.com --> Support --> Software Updates --> All Orders Version 6.2.14

- Added All Orders Features:

* New Preference to allow Item Costs per Vendor to be entered in the Purchased as Measure Cost

* View Line #'s on Documents

* Currency & Exchange rate columns are now available on all Document Lists

* Checkbox on Location to Include/Exclude their Quantities from the main Item List

* Preference to ignore QuickBooks Errors stating that a User has updated their information in QuickBooks

If you need help installing the update, please visit the Update Setup Instructions Page, located on the All Orders Version 6 Update Page (View directions on accessing the update page, above) or contact Support to schedule an update appointment

All Orders Weekly Webinars

After the success of our Client Retreat, Numbercruncher.com has decided to launch a FREE Weekly Webinar Program with our In-House Trainer, Veronica! Each week will feature a different in-depth, hour-long LIVE training demo conducted via teamviewer software. These webinars are currently for existing Numbercruncher Clients and are limited to five participants each week, however we have plans to expand the number of weekly participants & open the webinars up to non-Numbercruncher customers. Participants will be required to preregister for the event, no later than 24 hours before the webinar starts. More details on the Webinars & Registration process will be announced in the coming weeks, but if you are interested in more information or would like to request a topic to be covered, please email jgoldberg@numbercruncher.com

The best way to begin this blog topic is to discuss what on earth are we talking about?

Accrual Basis is a bookkeeping method in which you regard income or expenses as occurring at the time you ship a product, render a service or receive a purchase. In Accrual accounting, the time when you enter a transaction and the time when you actually pay or receive cash, may be two separate events. An Accrual-Basis report shows income regardless of whether your customers have paid their invoices and expenses, regardless of whether you have paid all your bills

Cash Basis is a bookkeeper method in which you regard income or expenses as occurring at the time you actually receive a payment of pay a bill. A Cash-Basis report shows income income, only if you have received cash and expenses. If you have not received a payment for an invoice, a Cash-Basis report does not include the income

What's the difference? The Cash accounting method is very straightforward: When cash comes in the door, we record it as revenue & as cash goes out the door, we record it as an expense. The Accrual accounting method is a bit more complicated. With the Accrual method, you need to record revenue when you earn it. For example, you ship a customer on net 30 terms, Using the Accrual method, revenue would be recorded when the product ship, whereas in the Cash method, revenue is recorded when the customer pays after the 30 days.

Likewise, when you purchase an inventory item, your Bill, Check or Credit Card charge will debit the item's Inventory Asset account and credit your Accounts Payable, Bank or Credit Card account. It is not debited to an expense account because (a) it is an asset that you can sell for future benefits & (b) you record the expense to match the income. When you ultimately sell the inventory, QuickBooks will record Revenue and Cost of Good Sold.

So if you are using the Cash Method, you would expect there to be no Accounts Receivable, right? That is not always the case, especially if you have Inventory. Recall that when you create an invoice, QuickBooks records both the Revenue and Cost of Good Sold, but since you are on the Cash Method, Revenue is not shown your Profit & Loss report until you receive the check from your customer. But it would seem right to not record the Revenue, yet still record Cost of Goods Sold, so QuickBooks will temporarily "plug" that amount into your Accounts Receivable. It would make a lot more sense to plug that back into Inventory Asset, but QuickBooks is QuickBooks.

Here are some helpful hints:

The best way to track your Inventory Purchases is to run the Inventory Valuation Summary/Detail reports for all dates:

- Accrual-Basis reports will count Sales as of the Inventory Date & Count Expenses as of the date the goods or services were received

- Cash-Basis reports will provide the reader with a history of cash inflow & outflow

- Under Cash method, Income is reported in the year it is received & expenses are generally deducted in the year they are paid

QuickBooks automatically sets itself to the Accrual Method of accounting because the Generally Accepted Account Principles (GAAP) basis requires the Accrual Method. But since the GAAP is what's generally accepted & not what's required, you are able to customize your QuickBooks to record in the Cash Basis instead.

Although you may have your preferences set to Cash-Basis reporting, some reports will automatically default to an Accrual Basis. Since Accrual Basis is the more common of the two types of accounting method, QuickBooks defaulted the Profit & Loss Report to this method. If you would like to be able to run your Profit & Loss Report without having to customize it each time, you can setup and save a customized report

- In QuickBooks Online:

- Click on Reports to open the Report List page and select the Report you'd like to view

- At the top, click the Customization button

- In the new window that opens, go to the General section and then note which Accounting Method is selected

- Click to select a new Account Method

- Make any other necessary customizations and click Run Report

Your Profit & Loss Report shows the Sales of Product Income accounts and the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) accounts that are associated with your inventory-enabled Product/Service Item. COGS is an account that reflects the cost of materials and goods held in inventory and then sold. When you sell an item from your inventory, COGS increases by the amount you paid for that item when you purchased it. The difference between the income from the sale & the increase in COGS is the Gross Profit of the sale of that item

All Orders CRM Beta is a web based system that shares you All Orders Desktop data and is used primarily for:

Leads, Customers & Contacts Management

Quotes & Sales Order Generation

Inventory Lookup

Activity Tracking (Tasks, Events, Emails & Logs)

Reporting

In order to run the All Orders CRM Beta, you must have a valid license or trial key for BOTH All Order (AO) & All Orders Web (AOW). The AOW key powers up the system, while the AO key defines how many users can be listed. All Orders CRM was created because the demand for installed software has been eclipsed by the demand for cloud software. As such Numbercruncher is taking steps to port the desktop software, our customers know and love, to the cloud. All Orders CRM is the first step in that direction. All Orders CRM is the basis for our new flagship product Order Time. Order Time will be a completely hosted browser based version of All Orders that will be licensed on a subscription basis. This new interface will make it possible to truly control your business from anywhere at anytime. After the launch of Order Time, our clients will have the choicebetween a desktop solution & a cloud solution.

As a thank you to our customers, we will be running FLASH SPECIALS between Thanksgiving & Christmas. Check the Special Offers page, located under Contact on the Numbercruncher website to see the current specials! Most specials will be one-day-only, so make sure you frequently check the page. While most specials will be announced the day of, we decided to announce our first two specials early. The first special is for new customers and will occur on Saturday, November 26th for American Expresses Small Business Saturday.New Customers who Purchase ALL ORDERS on 11/26 with an American Express Credit Card, will receive 10% back from Numbercruncher. The other special we are announcing early is for Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday will mark 70 days until our Client Retreat, so we are offering $70 off your registration purchase! Use code CYBER at checkout between 12:01am & 11:59pm on 11/28. Visit the Special Offers page for more details.

Finally this week, the Numbercruncher Development team is happy to announce the release of All Orders 6.2.10. Please find the New Features & Known Issues Fixed below:

Added: Option to copy parent customer shipping addresses when setting a parent to a customer/job

Added: Payments/Refund can be added to read only ship docs/returns

Added: Option to add a customer/job column on the item grid for PO's & Receive item documents to assign a customer/job to each line item

Hey Crunchers, hope everyone had a successful October and is ready for the Holiday season! So our readers know, our blogs until the end of the year will be more condensed, as we finish development on our newest product, Order Time.

Although we are focused on finishing & releasing Order Time, one thing we are committed too is not letting our support or development on All Orders slip. This is evident by our upcoming release of All Orders version 6.2.7. The newest release adds 15 new features & fixes some common issues (i.e. Duplicate item error when trying to reconcile QuickBooks to All Orders.) Please visit our known issues section of our support page to view the full list of Added & Fixed Features of 6.2.7.

One new feature area I would like to highlight briefly has to do with Packages. With All Orders, you can now create Packages & Boxes and can specify what items go into each Package/Box. In order to use this new feature, you need to manually turn it on by going to Preferences --> Shipping --> Company Preferences --> Package. After turning the preference on, you now have the ability to:

Once the Packages are created, you can create & view a Package Manifest that shows the breakdown of quantities

Integrate your shipping with FedEx & UPS

Just a quick reminder that TODAY is the final day to get discounted registration for the Numbercruncher Client Retreat! Use code NC17 to save at checkout until 11:59pm TONIGHT (10/31)! The Client Retreat will be held February 6th through 9th in Dania Beach, Florida and will cover topics on All Orders, All Orders Web, All Orders Mobile, Integration Options, Business Cycles, Inventory Primer, Reports & More! The Retreat is the perfect opportunity to learn everything you ever wanted to know about current & future Numbercruncher products, as well as, the perfect opportunity to escape the harsh winters of up north!

The end of the year is fast approaching, make sure your All Orders software is setup and working properly before the holiday rush hits! Don't hesitate in contacting us, if you have any questions or need to setup training

Here at Numbercruncher, we pride ourselves on our client relationships. We know we wouldn't be around, if it wasn't for you, our customers. So we decided after 17 years, it's time to welcome the heart and soul of NumberCruncher.com, to Sunny South Florida. We figured what better time to host the event then during the harsh Winter month of February.

That's right! Numbercruncher.com is excited to announce our first Client Retreat! Come escape the cold while relaxing under the Palm Trees & Sun in Dania Beach!

The Retreat will be held at the Hyatt Properties (Hyatt House/Hyatt Place) February 7th & 8th, with a welcome reception the evening of Monday, February 6th. In addition, we have some exciting events planned for the evenings of the Retreat.

When booking your hotel, you have the choice to stay at either property. Our Expo Room will be located at Hyatt House, while our Informative Sessions will be at Hyatt Place. Both hotels are directly across the street, and takes less than 30 seconds to walk between the properties

The theme of the Retreat is Refresh, Relax & Reconnect. We want our Cruncher Clients to REFRESH their knowledge of the Numbercruncher family of products, RELAX in the South Florida sun by escaping the rough Winter of the North & RECONNECT with our Trainers and network with your fellow Crunchers

To find out more about the Retreat, please click on one of the links below:

Hey Crunchers, I Hope everyone's saying T.G.I.F. and is looking forward to the start of the weekend! As usual, its been a hectic and busy week here at the NumberCruncher offices. Other then our normal daily workload, we have been working on some new and exciting projects, that I know everyone here can't wait to announce! Make sure to follow our blog, our social media channels and your email inboxes for all these upcoming announcements.

As the end of the year starts to roll around, your company will start to reevaluate your software choices. Maybe in years past you just went with the software that you already knew. This year take a leap out of your comfort zone, and give All Orders by NumberCruncher a try! To guarantee our software is a perfect fit for your company, we require all new users to have a hour-long software demo, with our CEO or CTO. We do this to make sure our customers know the ins-and-outs of our software, as well as, it allows all future clients a platform to ask any questions they may have about the software or what it does. After this demo, we supply you with a 30-day no commitment FREE trial of the software, so you can see just how beneficial All Orders by NumberCruncher really is! After that trial, you can decide to join the Cruncher family and pay a one time fee for the software, which includes your first year of support. After the first year, you just pay a yearly fee for support. All software updates are included in your yearly support plan! To help our clients know exactly how much they will be paying with us, we have created our Pricing Calculator and positioned it right on our website, so new clients can see exactly how much they will be spending.

Simply fill out the form and it will tell you what your initial cost will be and what your reoccurring yearly maintenance plan will be.

If you are interested in scheduling a demo of All Orders, please click HERE or give us a call at 1-866-CRUNCHER, Today!

Here at NumberCruncher.com, we truly feel we would be nothing without our loyal clients. This is the reason that we strive for the best customer service and always put our customers first! If you EVER have any questions, comments or concerns please immediately call us at 1-866-CRUNCHER (278-6243) or email us at support@numbercruncher.com. Our office hours are Monday - Friday 9am to 5pm EST. If you email/call after business hours, someone will contact you within 2 business days. If you are having issues and need help sooner, please call us back at the start of the following business day, so we can attempt to solve your issue immediately.

Refresh, Relax & Reconnect

As mentioned in our last blog, Numbercruncher.com will be having our 1st annual NumberCruncher Retreat, this upcoming February in SUNNY & WARM Ft. Lauderdale, FL! Details will be announced & registration will open on September 1st, but as a loyal Cruncher blog reader, you are getting an exclusive! The Retreat will be the beginning of February 2017! Our blog post on Friday September 2nd will have a full preview of the event, but in the meantime, follow our Retreat twitter at @NCRetreat2017 for the latest news!

$100,000 Small Business App Showdown

at QuickBooks Connect 2016

Finally this week, I just wanted to remind everyone about the Intuit App Challenge. All Orders by NumberCruncher was selected as a participant for this years showdown, which is held at QuickBooks Connect in San Jose, California in October. The voting for the event is August 16th through the 31st. On Monday, I will be publishing a special blog post on how to vote for All Orders by Numbercruncher.com. We really need all our Loyal Cruncher Family to support us and vote once per day, so we can show the entire QuickBooks community that NumberCruncher is a dominate force in the Inventory Software space! Please check back on Monday and follow our Twitter, Facebook & Linkedin pages for the latest information on the event.

Also, I know i wrote in the last blog post, I would include a sneak peek of Order Time, but I promise the wait will be worth it! Keep checking back & follow our Order Time Twitter for the latest on this revolutionary new software being brought to you by Numbercruncher.com!

Keep pushing through those Friday feelings and I Hope everyone has a great weekend!